AN IDENTIFICATION AND CONTROL STRATEGY FOR A LIQUID COMPOSITE MOLDINGPROCESS

Liquid Composite Molding (LCM) is a manufacturing process that involve s the injection of resin into a mold containing fiber preform and the subsequent curing. Control of the resin injection is an obvious way to increase process performance. Variability in the properties of the fi bers makes open-loop approaches problematic. This paper presents a con troller for a I-D analog of the LCM process. The purpose is to demonst rate that a straightforward estimation and control scheme can adapt to unmodelled variations in the properties of the mold, and enforce a pr escribed filling behavior. The scheme is applied to a simulation of an LCM process. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.